News and Announcements

July 16, 2015: Roque Ruiz-Carmona (Ph.D. candidate, Institute of Mathematics, Astrophysics and Particle Physics, Radboud University Nijmegen, The Netherlands) has requested AAVSO assistance with his campaign to observe 17 cataclysmic variables (CVs) with the William Herschel Telescope (WHT) next week.

July 10, 2015: The novalike/VY Scl variable V380 Oph is in its low state and is undergoing a deep fading, according to observations by Adolfo Darriba Martinez on 2015 July 4 and 5 reported via VSNET, CBA, and to the AAVSO International Database.

The AAVSO Newsletter is a periodic, general forum that supports our various observing programs with lists of new targets, observing programming ideas, and general information that spans a wide area of interest. Guest writers contribute pieces that can range from current events to book reviews.

July 1, 2015: In AAVSO Alert Notice 522 on the upcoming observations of the black hole X-ray binary V404 Cyg by HST, the date of the detection by the Swift satellite was incorrectly given as 2015 June 16.77197 UT (Barthelmy et al., GCN Circular 17929). The correct date is 2015 June 15.77197 UT.

June 23, 2015: The symbiotic variable AG Peg is in outburst, the first one observed since its only known outburst, which occurred in 1860-1870. Currently at visual/V magnitude 7.2 (B=7.8), it is an excellent target for visual, PEP, CCD, and DSLR observers and spectroscopists. The current outburst began after 2015 May 27 UT (T. Markham, Leek, Staffordshire, England, from the BAAVSS online database) and was underway by June 13.90 (A. Kosa-Kiss, Salonta, Romania).

June 18, 2015: V404 Cyg, an X-ray nova and a low mass X-ray binary (LMXB) with black hole component, is undergoing its first reported X-ray and optical outburst since 1989. Large scale, rapid variations are being reported in wavelengths from X-ray to radio by professional and amateur astronomers worldwide.

Thanks to a hard-working team of volunteers led by Juan-Luis González Carballo (GCJ) and Josep Lluís Salto González (SJGA), we are pleased to announce that a Spanish language version of the AAVSO Guide to CCD Photometry is now available for download:

Thanks to a great volunteer effort by George Silvis, Sudden Ionospheric Disturbance (SID) observers can now use the SID Data Grabber help prepare an AAVSO SID report file from their Stanford/SARA superSID monitor log files. Please visit the SID Data Grabber page to read more and download this handy application.